Like, Share, Comment, Subscribe, Join – YouTube

YouTube has an enormous impact on the lives of millions. Creators, young and old, are supplementing their income, or making a fortune through posting an unthinkable range of content. Some is uplifting, educational, funny, entertaining, diverting and nostalgic. Some is less positive. My son who is blind gets a great pleasure from ‘watching’ YouTube clips of old game shows, children’s programmes, and even Sesame Street. When I want to know anything – how to crochet, how to fix a tap, how to use Adobe Illustrator and so much more, I look for a video on YouTube.

My channel is Dr Nic’s maths and stats Youtube channel. Its main content is about statistics, particularly introductory College statistics, though I have dabbled in other areas such as skip counting and spreadsheets. There are over fifty thousand subscribers, and nearly two million views a year. People really love and benefit from my videos and ask me how they can help me to keep going.

There are a multitude of ways to respond to a YouTube video, and it isn’t always clear what they are.

Like

Engage with YouTube

Click on the thumbs up symbol. This endorses the video for other users, the creator, and the YouTube search algorithm. It matters if you like a video – you can use the power of the click to encourage good content.

Share

You can tell people about useful and uplifting videos and the most direct way is by using the Share facility in YouTube itself. This lets the algorithm know what you value, and what it will recommend to other viewers.

Comment

YouTube is a surprisingly intimate platform. Your comment, particularly if it is helpful and constructive, helps the creator. I love comments. I read all my comments and often reply. You can see from the heart symbol that I have read your comment and thank you for it. The fact that a viewer makes the effort to comment endorses the video.

Make a playlist

If you have your own “channel” on YouTube you can make your own playlists. You might have a collection of the statistics videos you want to watch in preparation for a test, or for easy access when you are doing statistical analysis. If you are a statistics teacher, a playlist can help your students know which videos to watch. You can send them a link to your playlist. Playlists endorse videos and help the YouTube engine know what to suggest.

Subscribe to the channel

Example of buttons from another channel

This is often misunderstood to imply that you are paying something. It means that you are interested in what this channel does, and makes it easier for you to find and watch. Subscription does not mean you will get told about every single video that channel posts. You need to click on the notification bell for that. Subscription means that you can take part in the community chat. For the Creator, subscriptions are gold, as they add validity to their channel. When a channel gets 100,000 subscribers, they get a nice trophy from YouTube. I encourage anyone who watches any of my videos to subscribe to the channel.

Join the channel

YouTube has recently (early 2019) enabled channel membership for some channels. This is the only action on this list that will cost you money. Joining the channel is a very real way to support the creator. Only some channels have this facility, though Youtube will be allowing more channels. At present you would pay about $4.99 US a month, depending on where you live, 70% of which goes to the creator. There are various “perks” associated with channel membership. It is similar to Patreon, but less versatile.

For Dr Nic’s Maths and Stats channel you will be able to have input into the direction the channel takes, such as voting on the topic for the next video. You get a membership badge, and you can ask statistics questions. You can cancel at any time.

Please consider becoming a member. For less than one cup of coffee a month, you can help me keep making high quality content that helps people all over the world to understand maths and statistics.